


and absence is the guide

by songs



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Missing Moments, as usual: i'm sorry, behind the scenes klance, spans from s3-s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 23:36:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/songs
Summary: i walked as the sleepless walk, led by my dream.The thing about water was that it made up seventy percent of the world, but it was different everywhere you went. Polluted, poisoned, fresh, sweet. This percent was home-water, and that was strange-water. In Lance’s dream, he would always leave home and the water would always change, and by its edge there would be a figure, tense and young and not-quite-broad.





	and absence is the guide

**i.**

 

There was this dream Lance had, sometimes. And he knew it was a dream, because of the water. The _smell_ of water, in summertime. Salt and sweat. Brine and sunbalm. His last morning at home, before leaving for the Garrison.

 

The thing about water was that it made up seventy percent of the world, but it was different everywhere you went. Polluted, poisoned, fresh, _sweet_. This percent was home-water, and that was strange-water. In Lance’s dream, he would always leave home and the water would always change, and by its edge there would be a figure, tense and young and not-quite-broad.

 

Back on Earth, when Lance first had this dream, he’d been too stubborn to call out. But the Lance of that time and the Lance of that place were not the boy dreaming now. _In space, there’s hardly any water at all. Any drop is home. Any bit is right._

 

So tonight, he took a step. And then another. The sky was beautiful. Bluer than anything Lance could remember.

 

“Keith,” he breathed, and then, he was running. Chasing. _Always_ chasing. Dropout. Star-pilot. Red, black-paladin. Leader. Galra. _Keith—_ “Keith Kogane!”

 

The figure turned. He was frowning. He was Keith, and he was frowning.

 

And Lance jolted awake.

 

**ii.**

 

Sense of time in space was wonky at best and Matrix-slash-Time-Traveller’s-Wife at worst. Lance would never admit to the latter on the count that he’d cried like a _bitch_ after watching said movie on a bootlegged DVD in Hunk’s dorm-room, and he was kinda not too keen on bringing that up in front of, say, Keith. Keith, who was growing on him like a new planet’s air. Like an old, soaped shirt that’d once fit too tight. Keith used to suffocate him. Keith used to eclipse him.

 

Now, he was the leader. And once upon a time, Lance would’ve loathed that. He would’ve hated seeing Keith, star-bright, surging further up on his pedestal. But in reality, piloting the Black lion almost seemed to drag Keith down. There wasn’t a single ocean in all the galaxies they’d travelled to, but Keith was drowning, and Lance was guilty. For his envy, for his meanness, even if most of it was in his head. His mother hadn’t raised him to be petty. She raised him good and she raised him kind, so when Black had chosen Keith, fair and square, he said:

 

“I respect its choice. And you should, too.”

 

It was the truth. Lance’d meant it. He _still_ meant it. He figured— if he was honest, Keith would see it, and he would understand. Things could change. _They_ could change.

 

And change they did.

**iii.**

Piloting Red was a weirdly intimate affair. It felt sort of like catching Keith before breakfast, in that odd state between sleep and not. Hair messy, face unwashed and unlined by all of his usual defenses. Keith reminded Lance of those prickly fruits he’d always passed over at the market. He had always been too scared of cutting his fingers. So he never had a taste.

 

But now, Keith was _everywhere_. Keith was in Red and Keith was in Black and Keith was set deep in Lance’s head like a ringing blow. Shiro’s absence had left a hole behind, but with it came a wholeness Lance had never known with Keith, before. Lance and Keith, neck-and-neck. Lance in the Red lion, in Keith’s bedroom. Keith listening to whatever Lance had to say. The dynamic went suddenly _right,_ suddenly _real._

 

And then, things began to click.

 

Lance would wait for Keith to appear in doorways. He would save him extra moon-jam at breakfast. Would wait for him in the training deck, would ask him about Red.

 

Lance missed Shiro. Lance missed _home._ Mama used to tease him for being so sentimental. _My darling Lance, always yearning. Always longing for what was._

 

Lance was used to missing people and missing places. But he found that nothing felt missing at all, these days. Voltron had become messy and quiltwork and somewhat strange, but Keith laughed more and more these days, and Allura’s face seemed to much younger, and Pidge and Hunk and Lance were melding into the parts they were meant to play.

 

Red was different from Blue. Lance belonged in Blue. But now, he belonged _to_ Red. Right arm. Across from the heart. A leap, a skip, a beat. Whenever Keith spoke, it echoed inside of Red like a song. And Lance understood.

 

He understood.

 

**iv.**

 

Sometimes Keith looked at Lance in a way that made him wonder. Did he know? Did he feel the same? Was all of this in Lance’s head, like that longtime, watery dream?

 

“Do you think,” Keith asked him, one night, from the foot of Lance’s bed, “that this is okay?”

 

Lance swallowed. These late-night visits and conversations had become so common that they almost felt like a ritual. Keith’s room, Lance’s room. There was only a door between them, a single wall. Neither of them had thought to breach that space before.

 

_And now?_

“Depends,” Lance answered, “on what _it_ is.”

 

“Me,” Keith said. “Us. Without Shiro. Me— trying to. Keep everyone together. I’m not, I— I wouldn’t trust me. If I were you. I don’t trust me and I’m _me_.”

 

“Hey,” Lance said, rolling onto his stomach. “What brought this on? We’ve talked about this before.”

 

“I know—”

 

“I,” Lance said, “believe in you.”

 

Keith went entirely still.

 

“And for what it’s worth,” Lance went on, “I think you’re a great leader.”

 

It was both the wrong and right thing to say. Wrong— because Lance’s chest clenched and Keith’s face fell, his expression knotting into something ashen and grim. Right— because when Lance climbed down from the bed, Keith leaned his head against Lance’s knobby shoulder, and said, very softly, “Thank you.”

 

Lance said nothing back. He was light, and he was heavy. He was a million miles from earth, and he—

 

He was drowning, drowning. Drowned.

 

**v.**

Then, Shiro was back. Voltron was mismatched. The lions were lost.

 

This time, it was Lance who was worried. But Keith only smiled.

_Things will work themselves out._

 

**vi.**

“Where do you think you’re going?”

 

Keith tugged down his hood, and Lance thought, _good._ It didn’t suit him, anyway. In the time Lance’d known him, Keith had been so many things. Rival, dropout, _captain._ At the bones of it, though, he remained the same weary, wary boy. Old habits died hard. Keith was a prodigy of a pilot, but his real talent lied in vanishing. One moment, he was everywhere. Haunting Lance like the dead, from morning to night.

 

The next? Gone.

 

“I’ll be back soon,” Keith murmured, looking awkward and caught. “Kolivan— he has a lead. And I can help. He wants me to go.”

 

“He wants you,” Lance said slowly. “But we— Keith. We _need_ you.”

 

Keith’s gaze filled with the castle-light. Then, just as quickly, it was empty. “Shiro’s here. It’s fine. You’ll be fine.”

 

“I,” Lance began, “won’t be.”

 

“You won’t?”

 

The fight left Lance in one fell swoop. _Oh._ He thought back to the dream by the water. To Keith’s back, to Keith’s presence, to his quiet, tinny happiness that moved Lance like a pulse. All of that, all of it, meant something different to Lance than it did to Keith. All of it.

 

But Keith kept staring at him. Constellations, haggard moons. Keith’s eyes, which had held so many emotions in the past, only held Lance’s expression now, and he took the chance. He dipped forward, close enough for his mouth to feel the phantom press that could’ve been.

 

Keith stood unkissed before him, and Lance repeated, “I won’t.”

 

**vii.**

Lance had expected anger. Lance had expected frustration, confusion.

 

But what he got was: “You’re so stupid.”

 

What he got was: his first kiss.

 

**viii.**

What he got was: Keith. Vanishings and all.

 

“So,” Lance said, his voice hard. “You’re leaving, again?”

 

“Not for long,” Keith answered, like he always did. “You won’t even notice I’m gone.”

 

 _I will._ Lance thought. _I really, really will._

 

Keith turned around. His back gleamed in the moonlight. He was clad all in black. An eclipse. A shadow. No red, no blue. The color of the bottom of the ocean.

 

“You won’t,” Keith repeated, walking to the door.

 

Farther, farther—

 

_Gone._

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from one of my favorite poems -- in her absence i created her image.
> 
> i'm back after approximately 1,000 years! ;; so sorry the fic is emo , though ;_;


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